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Thursday, September 13, 2012

Potty Humor and Politics: How one of these might save us from the other.

I have made a few attempts at humor on this blog. I am not sure how successful I have been, but I keep trying anyway. I keep trying because I believe humor is of tremendous value. Humor is a way of breaking through barriers, softening hard hearts, and lightening burdened ones. Some have said “truth is funnier than fiction” but I say unto you, “Funny is truthier than fact.” Sometimes humor conveys truth in a way recitation of statistics could not begin to do.

For example, I have recently been reading “Me The People,” by Kevin Bleyer. Bleyer describes the behavior of our representatives in an election year, saying they, “spend obscene amounts of money telling us that Washington has a spending problem.” This comment first made me chuckle and then made me think to myself, “Well, duh, it doesn’t make much sense to expect someone to practice fiscal responsibility when he or she has been chosen from a pool of folks who have just spent millions of dollars essentially on self-promotion.” I had thought about the horrors of the fact our elections are purchased by those who have access to the most money. I had thought about the mind boggling ineptitude of our politicians when it comes to basic budgeting. Yet I hadn’t put the two together. Humor helped me do that.

There is much that is laughable in our society: the majority of the wealth being in the hands of so few, our elections up for purchase, and so on. We have to laugh at such things or cry. So, I say we latch on to the truth revealing power of humor. What we need is a grassroots organization committed to revealing and fighting the absurdities in our political system through humor. Such valiant foes of injustice might be called: “The Justice League.”

Already taken? Pooh. Well speaking of pooh. There is power to be had even in potty humor. It is kind of a universal language. Many of us would proclaim ourselves above such base silliness but deep down we all know it is funny. I will confess: just a week ago I laughed until I cried over a good bit of potty humor. This is an untapped power completely at our disposal (pun most certainly intended). Let’s launch a grassroots movement called “Plunge-aholics Anonymous.” Time and again we are pulled into backing our candidate against the demonized foe from that other party. Time and again we are conned into believing there are only two options. Thus we buy into the very system we should be seeking to destroy and remove any obstacles to the status quo, removing obstacles so that our money can continue to be flushed down the toilet. Plunging the way clear for senseless waste. (Pun, pun, pun, pun, pun!) One of the first tasks for Plunge-aholics Anonymous, would be to send laxative coupons to those who push for cuts to programs which benefit the poor. Such folks are clearly suffering from constipated compassion.

The weight of our current economic and political situation can be overwhelming. Perhaps a more light hearted approach could free us from cynicism, free us to see we can bring about change. Let’s use creativity and humor and truth to illuminate the path ahead, a path by which we claim the power of the people and set about to make the world a better place.

When I was checking my goats the other day one of them peed on my foot. I could have cried. I could have allowed myself to be immobilized by the disgust of it all. Instead I laughed and rolled my eyes and departed to clean off my foot. Some might say the wealthy and our political system are treating the rest of our country the way my goat treated my foot. So, let’s use humor to get us moving so we can clean up this mess.